this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 days ago (3 children)

How does this work from an implementation perspective? Is there a field on whatever software that does import taxes that they can tweak? Or is it just backdated from the date of import, based on the invoice?

[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 days ago (1 children)

With that question alone you've already put more thought into this than the person declaring these brain-dead tariffs.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It's not hard to put more thought into anything than most people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

The sadder truth is that most of us are all most people.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Most people didn't need to think about this that much. It's the ones who do need to but don't that are the problem.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

I believe they get charged when products go through customs. If you want them to get to the US side of the 'gate', the importer pays the tariff. One inputs the country of origin, the product category, and the product value, and out pops the required charge.

Probably will have some delays as the software get updated, and I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of Chinese goods get re-routed through Vietnam or other countries with lower import tariffs.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

I hope >100% wasn't tested and breaks the software

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Do you have an idea of how the value is discerned? For example, what's to stop someone from putting things on a boat and saying they're worth a penny?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

That does get audited - customs officials do have a look at a lot, and frequently check products against stated claims.

At least this is my experience with my own company's cross border business - labeling, valuation, documentation of sales and invoices, etc, all matter. We've had shipments to the US stopped and held before over what you'd consider minor issues with labeling or newer guys at the ship desk leaving i's undotted or t's uncrossed. I've had some panicked calls about costing and valuation documentation in big shipments. There were some loopholes to a few rules, but they were small and because these tariffs apply to pretty much everything from any given country, I have a hard time imagining there would be major work arounds for this.

Smaller drop-shippers with more discreet packaging might be able to get away with reducing their numbers - or at least rolling the dice on not getting checked - but for large commercial shipments, absolutely not.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

They have to show the invoice from the supplier.

Yes, where the importer is also the manufacturer (such as cars), the factory can sell at a loss and make up the difference onshore. However, then their tax liability is greater. What they usually do is sell via a tax haven, the importer is based in Barbados, pays their supplier below cost, and the onshore distributor then pays the importer more than they sell for, so they make a "loss" for tax purposes. Tax is only liable on profits.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

Probably will have some delays as the software get updated, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of Chinese goods get re-routed through Vietnam or other countries with lower import tariffs.

trump hit Vietnam with a 46% tariff, so lower than China currently, but still a huge hit.

I was planning on buying a pair of sneakers within the next couple of months. When these tariffs hit, I knew I needed to buy them right now while shelves are still stocked with pre-tariff merchandise. My (popular) brand of shoes are made in Vietnam (46% tariff) and Laos (58%) tariff.

Many popular brands of shoes are made in these two countries so you also may want to do the same.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Probably will have some delays as the software get updated, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of Chinese goods get re-routed through Vietnam or other countries with lower import tariffs.

Most likely they'll just have is "assembled" (put in a box) in Mexico.

India has 300% tariff on Chinese goods. Everything is still made in China there. US auto workers make $40 an hour, a Chinese autoworker makes $100 a week. Yes there are robots, but they have to be maintained. The difference is the costs of fitters in the US and China is even greater.

There might be a few edge cases where it is cheaper to make in the US ; food processing for example, where the sale price is low and transport is a large proportion, or highly automated things, like making plastic bags or injected moulded stuff like those garden chairs or plastic tanks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

The things that are cheaper to make in the US were already made in the US.
Because of the high cost of labor here, we tend to specialize in things where the unit cost is so high that the labor cost doesn't matter as much and spending extra for educated and skilled workers becomes a cheaper upgrade. Things like jet engine parts, engines, and machine tools.
Also things where you make a lot of them in an automated fashion, like precision screws and nuts or refined petroleum products. We're probably not making the plastic bags or chairs, but we would be making the giant tub of plastic beads used for the injection moulding, which is then shipped to Malaysia to be moulded, and then back to the US to be a deck chair.

The set of industries that are close enough to the line to make sense to move to the US and can be moved quickly enough for it to matter is vanishingly small.
It's why most of our exports have been intangible for so long.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

I believe it's paid as part of clearing customs. Since everything is in some capacity inspected (even if that just means checking the weight, container seals, and serial numbers in the freight container), that means there's some record of what's coming in and from where. At that point the importer pays customs the various fees and taxes before customs let's them take the goods out of the port of entry.

The importer would mark it down as part of the taxes that they paid on their purchase, but it would largely only matter so that they can appropriately indicate what portion of the purchase price was taxes that have already been paid so they don't double pay later.